Sunday, September 22, 2013

Last week a 13-year-old girl from Richmond died in a fall over a cliff onto the Blue Ridge Parkway. The official report from the National Park Service follows:

Blue Ridge Parkway - Teenager Dies In Fall From Cliff

Blue
Ridge Parkway dispatch center and Humpback Rocks visitor center
received multiple reports of a young woman who had fallen approximately
50 feet down a cliff onto the parkway on Sunday evening, September 15th.
There was a rapid response from park rangers and interpretive staff,
Waynesboro and Wintergreen rescue squads, and medically trained
visitors who witnessed the accident.

The patient, a 13-year-old girl,
was flown by helicopter to University Medical Center in Charlottesville,
but succumbed to her injuries. She had been picnicking with family and
friends at Humpback Rocks picnic area and had hiked out to an overlook
to view the sunset. She and another youngster had scrambled down from
the overlook and were climbing along the top of the cliff when she fall. [Submitted by Kurt Speers, Ridge District Ranger]

The victim was identified as Alexandra Babeva. In a tribute, her sister Alissa wrote the obituary that appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Oh, darling. Although we
weep for the time you lost, we cannot mourn the time you lived. In 13
years, you learned enough to fill lifetimes. With those endless words of
yours, you told the world into existence. Your love always lived beyond
you, such a little being could not possibly hold the return. Now, we
love for you. I live for you. Tbl CBET. Everywhere, the people you knew
keep you as sweet, soft whispers. Reminding us to smile truly and look
deeply; you will tell us how to see the smallest of the small and the
biggest of the big. You flew, my baby, you never fell.

For anyone
wishing to reflect Sasha's beauty through nature's divinity, our family
invites you to enter the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens at 11 a.m.
Sunday, September 22, 2013. Written by Alexandra's sister, Alissa.
Arrangements by Bliley's-Staples Mill.